CHAPTER XI THE GUARD OF THE STONE GATEWAY
At the very moment when Marion was wondering and worrying about her pal,Florence was learning how truly one might trust the providence of God.
Being cornered, with the grizzled giant before her accusing her of "mightnigh killing" little Hallie, and with the beady-eyed individual, whom shefeared most of all, blocking the door before her, and with Bud Wax, whomshe had always thought of as a member of the enemy's clan, groaning withpain in the corner, she had reached the point of utter distraction whenof a sudden the man in the doorway spoke.
He had just been told that little Hallie had returned home, "might nighkilled."
"T'ain't so!" he exclaimed, looking first at the one-armed giant and thenat Florence. "Hain't narry a word of truth in what you just been saying,Job Creech. Them thar folks never hurt Hallie. They never teched one hairon her head. They was plumb kind an' gentle with her. I been watchin'. Iknowed whar she was. She was so pert and contented hit were a shame totote her away."
Nothing could have more surprised Florence than this speech; nothingcould have more quickly released her pent-up powers and set her brainworking on the needs of the moment.
"Hain't nobody been totin' Hallie back," grumbled the giant. "This herefureign lady brung her back."
Florence did not hear this speech. She was already bending over thesilently sobbing child. After loosening her clothes, she chafed her coldhands and feet until a warm red glow returned to them; then, picking herup, she placed her on the bed and covered her in home woven blankets. Inless than a minute Hallie fell into a peaceful sleep.
"She'll be all right when she wakens," Florence smiled reassuringly atthe younger woman, who she thought might be the little girl's mother."When she wakes up she may even recognize you all. I hope so."
The woman stared at her as if she had spoken to them in a foreignlanguage.
Disregarding this, she turned to the man at the door. "This boy hasbroken his arm," she said, nodding at Bud. "It will have to be set. Haveyou anything that will do for splints?"
"I reckon thar's right smart of shakes outen the shed."
"Will you get me some?"
The man disappeared.
After a search she found in the corner an old, faded calico dress whichwas quite clean.
"This will do for binding," she said, looking at the women. "You don'tmind if I use it?"
"'T'ain't no account noways."
"All right. Thanks."
She was obliged to hurt Bud severely while getting the bone in place andbinding it, but the boy uttered never a groan.
By the time this task was completed, finding herself quite shaky andweak, Florence somehow made her way to a splint-bottomed chair by thefire. Fresh fuel had been put on. In spite of the deluge of water thatnow and again came dashing down the chimney, the fire burned brightly.The thunder storm was now in full progress. Florence was surprised atnoting this.
So preoccupied had she been with her errands of mercy that she hadneither heard nor seen anything of it until this moment.
Strange indeed were her thoughts as she sat there staring at the fire. Attimes it was the fire itself that held her attention. Led on by thechallenge of wind and storm, it went roaring and laughing up the chimney,for all the world as if it meant to dispel the damp and cold from everycabin in the mountains. A moment later, slapped squarely in the face by adeluge of rain, it shrunk down within itself until the whole cabin was indarkness.
"It--it's given up," Florence would whisper to herself with a half sob."But no! There it is rising from its own blackened ruins to roar withcheer again.
"It's like life," she told herself. And, indeed, how like her own life itwas. Only a few days before she had been fired with hope and desire to beof service to these mountain people. Now, with hopes drowned and couragewell nigh gone, she waited only to battle her way through the comingtrial and the election that seemed certain defeat. A lump rose in herthroat at the thought.
But again, as the fire battling its way once more up the chimney flungfree its challenge to the elements, she was driven to believe thatcourage, hope and desire to serve would again burn brightly in her heart.
"Hope!" she whispered. "What hope can there be? The election is lost! Thewinter school a thing of the past. How can it be otherwise? And yet I dohope!"
These thoughts passed. She had become suddenly conscious of her immediatesurroundings. She was well within the natural stone gateway through whichentrance had been forbidden heretofore. She was in the midst of a strangeand mysterious people, in the very cabin of their leader. Of this lastshe felt sure.
She recalled with a sudden shock the weird tales she had heard told ofthese people, of the peddler with his rich pack of linens and box ofjewelry, and of the one-armed fiddler who had passed this way to be seenno more.
"And now I am here," she whispered, her limbs trembling with terror. "Andon such a night!"
Even as she spoke there came such a rolling crash of thunder as set thedishes in the little wall cupboard rattling and brought a huge cross-logon the fire down with a thud and sputter that sent sparks flyingeverywhere. She caught the rush of water outside, not alone the constantbeating of the rain, but louder and more terrifying than that, the mightyrush and roar of a cataract. Swollen to twenty times its natural size,Laurel Creek had become a mighty Niagara.
Turning about, she allowed her gaze to sweep the room. In one corner on abed little Hallie slept peacefully. In the opposite corner the man withthe hooked nose had thrown himself across the other bed. The two womenhad vanished, probably into the other room of the cabin. In the corner,with head pillowed on his uninjured arm, Bud Wax slept.
"He doesn't look to be such a bad fellow," Florence told herself. And sohe didn't. On his face there was such an expression as one might expectto find upon the countenance of one who, having lived through a long andhard fought battle for self and self interests, had at last found peacein service for another.
Florence read the look pictured there, but she could not account for it.She could not guess why the boy was there at all, nor why he had made theattack that had resulted in the broken arm. It was all very strange andpuzzling.
Strangest of all was the thing the one-armed giant was engaged in at thatparticular moment. On a small chair that emphasized his hugeness, withhead bent low and lips constantly moving, he sat whispering over an oldBible, spelling out the words one by one. As the fire regained courage todo its best, lighting up his aged face with a sort of halo, the girlthought she had never seen upon any face before a look so restful,benevolent and benign.
At that moment a hand touched her shoulder. She turned about and foundherself looking into the wrinkled face of the old woman.
"Thought y' might like to lay down a spell," she said, jerking her thumbtoward a door that led to the other room.
Without a word Florence followed her and, fifteen minutes later, buriedbeneath a pile of home woven coverlids, she lay lost in dreamless sleep.
* * * * * * * *
Marion sat upon a bed of moss well up the side of Big Black Mountain.Three days had passed since the mysterious disappearance of Florence andlittle Hallie, three days of tormenting anxiety. Every creek and runwayhad been searched, but to no purpose. They had vanished as completely asthey might had the earth swallowed them up.
Only one spot remained to be searched--the head of Laurel Creek, beyondthe natural gateway.
"They can't have gone up there," Mrs. McAlpin had said in a tone of deepconviction. "Florence knew well enough the reputation of those strangepeople. Nothing could have induced her to pass that forbidden barrier."
Not satisfied with this, Marion had gone to Ransom Turner about it.
"Hit's past reason!" he said emphatically. "Them's the killingest folksin the mountains. That's a fact, though they've never been made to standtrial. She'd never dare to go up there. An' besides, if hit were best togo there to
search, you'd have to git you up half the men in these heremountains, and there'd sure be a big fight right thar."
So the other hillsides had been searched and the tongues of localgossipers had wagged incessantly. Bitter enemies had it that, seeingherself defeated in the coming election and being ashamed or afraid tostand trial for carrying concealed weapons, the girl had fled in thenight and had taken the child with her to the "Outside." All this, theyargued, was known well enough by Mrs. McAlpin and Marion, but they didnot care to admit it.
In spite of all this, Ransom Turner and Marion had continued, almostagainst hope, to carry on the election fight. Black Blevens had sent wordto Lige Howard up on Pounding Mill Creek that his mortgage would beforeclosed if he and his three boys did not promise to come down onelection day and vote for him as trustee. Ransom Turner, on hearing thishad sent word to Lige that his mortgage would be taken care of--that hewas to vote for the best man.
Mary Anne Kelly, a niece of Black Blevens, who lived down at the mouth ofAges Creek, sent word to her fiance, Buckner Creech, that if he did notvote right she would break her engagement. That had put Buckner on thedoubtful list. Pole Cawood's wife, who was a daughter of Black Blevens,threatened to leave him and his four small children if he did not votefor her father.
"Such," said Marion, rubbing her forehead with a groan, "is a schoolelection in the Cumberlands. Nothing is too low or mean if only it helpsto gain an advantage. We have fought fair, and lost, as far as I can see.Ransom says we will lack ten or twelve votes, and he doesn't know wherewe can find a single other one."
And yet, with the cheerful optimism of youth, the girl still hopedagainst hope and looked forward with some eagerness the coming ofto-morrow and the election.
Needless to say, with worry over Florence and Hallie, and interest in theelection, she had found neither time nor interest for further explorationof the attic nor a search for Jeff Middleton's treasure.
* * * * * * * *
Strange were the circumstances that had held Florence within theforbidden gates these three long days.
She had wakened with a start on the morning following the storm and herstrange experiences in the cabin. The sun, streaming through a smallwindow, had awakened her. At first she had been utterly unable to accountfor her strange surroundings. Then, like a flash, it all came to her. Theaged giant, Bud Wax with his arm in a sling, the women, the other man,little Hallie, the storm,--all the strange and mysterious doings of thenight flashed through her mind and left her wondering.
The very window through which the sunlight streamed suggested mystery.Whence had it come? These mysterious people who lived beyond the stonegateway had come from below, had travelled up Laurel Creek and had notcome back to the settlement. Where had the glass for the window comefrom? Had it been taken from some older cabin? This log cabin seemedquite new. Had these strange people some hidden trail to the outsideworld? Ransom Turner had said there was no mountain pass at the head ofLaurel Branch. Could it be possible that he was wrong?
All the wondering was cut short by thought of little Hallie. How was she?Had consciousness returned? Perhaps she needed care at this very moment.
With this thought uppermost in her mind, Florence sprang from her bed,drew on her outer garments, then pushed open the door that led to theother room.
She found Hallie feverish, and somewhat delirious. Upon discovering this,without begging leave of her strange host and with not one thought forher own safety, she set herself about the task of bringing the bloom ofhealth back to the child's cheek.
The people about her brought the things she asked for, then stood or satquietly about as they might had she been a doctor.
During the course of the day some twenty men and women, and quite as manychildren, came to peek shyly in at the door, or to enter and sitwhispering together.
"More people in this neighborhood than one would think," was Florence'smental comment.
A day came and went. Hallie improved slightly. The next day she was somuch better that Florence took time for a stroll out of doors. It wasthen that she received something of a shock. Having wandered down thecreek trail until she was near to the stone gateway, she saw a tall,gaunt, young mountaineer step out into the path. With a rifle over hisarm, he began to pace back and forth like a sentry on duty.
"I--I wonder--" she whispered to herself, "if he would let me pass?"
She had no desire to leave without taking Hallie, she did not try, butdeep in her heart was the conviction that for some strange reason she wasvirtually a prisoner within those gates.
At once her mind was rife with speculation. Who were these people? Whathad they to fear from contact with the outside world? Were theymoonshiners? She had heard much of mountain moonshine stills before shecame to the Cumberlands. If they were moonshiners, where had they soldthe product of their stills?
"No, it couldn't be that," she shook her head.
Were they a band of robbers? If so, whom did they rob? She thought of thepeddler and the one-armed fiddler, and shuddered.
Still, as she thought of it now, she had seen very little in these cabinsthat could have come from a peddler's pack. The bare-topped wooden tableswere innocent of linen. Towels were made of coarse, hand-woven linen. Thewomen wore no jewelry such as might have come from a peddler's black box.
"It's all very strange and mysterious," she said with a shake of herhead.
Only one thing came to her clearly as she returned to the cabin--she mustremain beside little Hallie until she was out of danger.
"After that--what?"
This question she could not answer.